kirk minihane

Brady-Manning a better rivalry than Bird-Magic

The Larry Bird-Magic Johnson rivalry, the one that has spawned books and documentaries and (very soon) a Broadway play and endless hours of nostalgia on YouTube for anyone between the ages of, say, 35-50?

Overrated.

I'm serious. This isn't a knock on Bird (my childhood idol by about 25,000 lengths over Bruce Springsteen and Han Solo -- I spent my entire youth in full Larry Legend worship, complete with an attempted twang and near mullet) or Magic. I understand that every generation does this, but I will go to my grave convinced that basketball will never be played at a higher level than it was by the 1986 Celtics and 1987 Lakers, the two best teams in any sport I've ever seen. And I wouldn't trade the 1986 Larry Bird for any player ever, except maybe the 1987 Magic.

But here's something we've conveniently forgotten, some facts that have found the cutting room floor in the history of this rivalry, didn't quite fit the script: The Lakers were not a rival of the Celtics for the five years of Bird's career. Was Magic someone Bird compared himself to? Sure, probably. Checking the box scores, some tension in regular-season games, all that stuff. But the 76ers were the measuring stick from 1979 until the 1984 finals. The Celtics and 76ers hated each other, played in four Eastern Conference finals from 1979-85, all basketball wars (go back and watch the fourth quarter of Game 7 in 1981). That's 19 playoff games between the 76ers and Celtics (all Eastern Conference finals) before the Bird and Magic ever played a minute against each other in an NBA final. If you asked 100 legitimate Celtics fans in 1983 to name the team's biggest rival, I'm guessing 90 would have told you it was 76ers and Dr. J (which kind of explains the preseason brawl).

And Bird and Magic only lasted for four years -- the relevant, searing stuff anyway. From 1984-87 it was terrific theater, three finals in four years, all four MVPs between the two. Before that it was nonexistent (save for the NCAA title game) and after 1987 it was abruptly ended as the Celtics got old fast, thanks largely to Bird's double Achilles surgery in 1988. It was mutual admiration society time, they talked about how much they liked each other, the bitterness was gone. Good for them, bad for us. And, to be fair, once the Pistons figured out how to beat the Celtics we all kind of knew we'd never see Bird and Magic in June again.

I get why people want Bird and Magic to be more than it was. It has become an image, a representation of the very best of something. And it's such perfect casting -- the West Coast vs. the East Coast, Hollywood vs. Boston, black vs. white, style vs. substance (even though that was always a complete myth, Magic was all substance).

All-time great players, and for four years a very great rivalry.

But there have been better rivalries. And I think one could officially end on Wednesday.

Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. It doesn't look or feel the same as Bird and Magic, I'll grant you that. I suspect there will not be a Broadway play. And Brady-Manning never had a peak to match Bird-Magic.

But it was a sturdier rivalry, lasted twice as long as Bird-Magic. The "Brady or Manning" argument really started picking up steam in 2003, with the Colts winning 12 games and Manning his first of four MVPs. The Patriots won 14 games and Super Bowl No. 2, with Brady winning his second Super Bowl MVP. Two of those wins for the Patriots came over the Colts, a 38-34 classic in Indianapolis during the regular season (Willie McGinest stopping Edgerrin James on fourth down at the goal line) and the AFC title win at Foxboro, with Ty Law picking Manning off three times.

And it was defined. One guy knows how to win and the other guy doesn't. Stats vs. rings, clutch vs. choker, all the greatest hits. But, of course, it was more complicated and layered than that. Manning and Brady turned out to be two of the five best players ever at their position, and both managed to stay at a peak level for over a decade (Brady's still there, we will find out about Manning soon enough).

Bird-Magic was 1984-87, Brady-Manning was 2003-10. There were other teams in the mix -- Steelers, Giants, Jets -- but Brady's rival has always been Manning. Helps that both teams were really good the entire time, which is almost impossible in the NFL. From 2003-10 the Colts won 12, 12, 14, 12, 13, 12, 14 and 10 games and made the playoffs each season. The Patriots won 14, 14, 10, 12, 16, 11, 10 and 14 games and made the playoffs seven of the eight seasons (Bernard Pollard takes a bow).

Also this: Unlike Bird-Magic, regular-season games mattered with Brady and Manning (and the Celtics-Lakers regular-season games were usually not memorable). Playoff implications that simply couldn't exist when Eastern Conference and Western Conference teams played two out of 82 games. Of the seven Brady-Manning regular-season games from 2003-10, I count two as classics (the aforementioned 2003 game and fourth-and-2 from 2009) one as a near-classic (season-opener in 2004) and two just below that (the 24-20 win in 2007 that really served as the trigger for "Hey, 16-0 could really happen," and what may be the final Brady-Manning battle, 2010's 31-28 win). Throw in an absolute no-doubt classic in the 2006 AFC title game and you've easily got the requisite amount of thrillers needed for a rivalry to have legitimacy.

In those eight years Brady won two Super Bowls and played in another, Manning won one and played in another. Manning won four MVPs, Brady two. Brady or Manning was first-team All-Pro in seven of the eight years. Basically, here's what you had: Two of the best to ever play a position dominating at the exact same time, in the same conference, for the top two teams in the league for almost a decade.

When has that happened before? Wilt and Russell, sure. But that's it. Can't think of another example in American sports history.

And, yes, Brady won the rivalry. Three rings to one and five conference titles to two more than makes up for any statistical edge Manning may have (and even those are mostly gone now). The last two years have wiped out any question that Brady will rank higher on the pantheon when it's all done. But that doesn't make it any less of a rivalry -- there's always going to be a winner and a loser. Russell was the clear winner over Wilt, Jack Nicklaus over Arnold Palmer, Joe DiMaggio over Ted Williams, Ali over Frazier.

And Magic over Bird. I don't know if Magic was the better player -- it seems to me that the general consensus around 1986 was that Bird was the best player ever, not sure what happened -- but he won five titles and Bird won three. And in the three head-to-head finals matchups, it was Magic 2, Bird 1. OK, that was actually painful to write.

As rivalries go, Bird-Magic was as good as it gets for a short period of time, a period that seems longer thanks to altered history. Brady-Manning was better, twice as long, and every game the two ever played against each other was hugely important on the NFL landscape of that season.

And now it ends, the most significant player vs. player rivalry in NFL history, at a press conference in Indianapolis on a Wednesday afternoon.

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